A 3PL manages 20+ clients with Flowtrack
How a logistics provider in Mexico deployed Flowtrack for 250 users with complex multi-client requirements including pick-to-light, kitting, and production.
- Client
- Les Services Système D inc., Bois-des-Filion, Quebec
- Sector
- Third-party logistics: warehousing, packaging, assembly and secondary operations
- Solution
- Flowtrack (WMS), interfaced with the ERP
- Partnership
- Four years of continuous use, support still active
The Challenge
Founded in 2012 by Simon Bibeau, Les Services Système D takes on, from its Bois-des-Filion facility, the operations its customers would rather not run themselves.
What the company handles for its customers
- Quality control, sorting and packaging
- Assembly with lot tracking
- Just-in-time order preparation, B2B and B2C
- Warehousing of more than 1,000 pallets in FIFO rotation
- Distribution across greater Montreal
Its customers include major automotive manufacturers, cosmetics companies and chemical industries. In those sectors, lot traceability is not negotiable.
Paper and Excel held up, to a point
For its first years, the company managed stock by hand. Movements were written on paper, then transcribed into an Excel file. The system worked and the company grew on it.
But it always produced a picture of the past. Inventory was accurate as of the last entry, not as of the moment you looked at it.
Why that is a ceiling, not a breakdown
Every new customer and every lot to trace added transcription without adding capacity. And for a logistics provider, the inventory record is not an administrative tool. It is the product being sold. The customer hands over their goods and buys back a promise: they are here, they are the right ones, they are traceable.
Billing follows the same logic. An operation that was never recorded is an operation that was never invoiced.
Two constraints remained, the kind most WMS projects ignore: a small team and a limited budget.
Our Approach
Choosing the WMS you can actually run
Flowtrack was chosen for three concrete reasons: its simplicity, its cost and its flexibility. The right question was not which WMS was best on the market, but which one a company of this size could deploy and keep alive day to day.
Functional analysis before configuration
GCL mapped the real flows before configuring anything, then separated two families of transactions:
- those that must be traced for lot traceability
- those that drive billing directly
The WMS-ERP interface decides everything
The second workstream was the conversation between the WMS and the ERP. That point is what determines whether the WMS becomes the single source of truth, or a second silo to reconcile every month.
Training is the hardest part
Training and support ran through the entire implementation. It is the most demanding aspect of a project like this, and it is not technical: for a team used to paper, real time changes the gesture of every working day.
The Results
- Real-time inventory and transactions, replacing paper and an Excel file
- Faster billing cycle, driven by operational transactions
- Real-time inventory visibility given to Système D’s own customers
- Four years of growth in team and floor space, with rising productivity
- WMS-ERP interface established as the single source of truth
- More than 1,000 pallets in FIFO rotation, with lot traceability
“We wanted to give our customers the same level of rigour they would get managing their own stock. As we grew, that became impossible to hold by hand. Today our customers see their inventory in real time, and we invoice exactly what we did.”
Simon Bibeau, President and Founder
Les Services Système D inc.
What this means for you
- A limited budget is not an obstacle to implementing a WMS. It is a selection criterion.
- For a logistics provider, the WMS-ERP interface and the billing logic deserve as much attention as the warehouse processes.
- The value of a WMS is measured by the growth it lets you absorb afterwards, not by a successful go-live.